HONORABLE DAUGHTERS OF THE 'REVOLUTION,' TOGETHER IN PRISON
By Raúl Rivero, Cuba Free Press.

HAVANA - From my cell I could see Tania Quintero, Cuba Free Press
correspondent, her face shadowed by the cell's iron lines. From her
cell, she could hear the hoarse voice of Odalys Cubelo, Cuba Free Press
correspondent. And one could feel the feel the presence of Dulce María
de Quesada, dissident, quiet and silent, sitting on the edge of the gray
cement bed.

Not too far from this dark basement where we were being held, the trial
of the four members of the Working Group of Internal Dissidence was
being performed.

Tania wanted to be present at the trial because she is a first cousin of
Vladimiro Roca, one of the accused. Odalys wanted to cover the trial as
a journalist and Dulce María, a retired librarian and dissident, wanted
to be there because she felt she had the right to show a gesture of
solidarity with the accused.

I also had wanted to follow the trial as a communicator, as a Cuban
citizen and as a friend of the four intellectuals being tried. Yet I
was jailed with eight common prisoners who were accused of
dangerousness, abuse, armed robbery and pimping.

Of course many ideas crossed my mind and I experienced many feelings
during those 30 hours in jail. But as days go by, the shame and sadness
I felt for Cuba remains most prominent in my memory.

I would ask myself, what are these professional and decent women doing
in a Police-station cell?

What is going on in Cuba that honorable daughters of this country,
belonging to three different generations and from different political
origins and upbringings may be arrested on the streets and placed in a
cell with some women accused of prostitution and one of armed robbery?

I felt more pain for the imprisonment of those three journalist friends
than for mine. This is because I perceived their punishment as a symbol
anticipating a sacrificial pyre.

Tania and Odalys - like Marvin Hernández who had been imprisoned for 48
hours and began a hunger strike in Cienfuegos - while going through this
exercise of independent journalism in Cuba demonstrated professionalism,
integrity and discipline.

Later, a few hours after being relatively free so I could go home, I was
to have a unique 'meeting' with Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello. Suddenly,
there she was in my living room. The brilliant economist who loves
poetry and good music was there, wearing her prisoner's uniform, on my
television screen, while a state broadcaster insulted her, calling her a
stateless person and a "marionette of imperialism."

Since Marta's 'visit' was so peculiar, I almost commented aloud to her
about a note she sent me from the "Manto Negro" prison at the end of
1998. "Here we are," she had written, "without any apparent solution but
with a lot of faith in God, because there is nothing impossible for
Him."

Marta asked me to put together for her "some material on neo-liberal
business globalization and the financial crisis in Asia. I want to state
my opinions on the subject." A strange request from a woman in prison;
it's true; Marta's presence in the kind of Cuba we have can be
disquieting and odd.

Her note concluded, "Say hello to Blanca and tell her I recall her great
coffee. I hope God allows me to drink some of it soon, sitting in your
living room."

There I had been with Tania, Odalys and Dulce María in the jail and
Marta Beatriz later went to my home and I couldn't even offer her
coffee.